Basketball System: Rebound of the Underdog

Kai skipped happily to the public court, where he saw his teammates practicing on one half. Meanwhile, a group of kids overtook the other half of the court, most of them laughing at the second-string team's attempts to play a cohesive game.

"There's Kai!" Dylan said, pointing at the tall guy.

"Thank goodness," Alen sighed. "We were getting bullied by those little kids. Can't you make them go away?"

Kai glanced back at the group of kids and chuckled. "You do know that they're kids, right?"

"And so? Kids these days are so brave that it's crazy," Tony said.

Well, Kai couldn't argue with that. He still remembered his past occurrence with the kids at Richgate. If he hadn't needed to borrow their ball, then Kai would have walked away the moment they started teasing him.

Kai sighed and turned to the children before showing them his strongest glare.

Much to his surprise, the kids all froze before running away from the court, leaving it empty for the team to use.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Well, I didn't expect that to work," he said. "Looks like we'll have the whole court for ourselves now."

"What do you mean you didn't expect that to work?" Sunny chuckled. "No offense, but you look really scary."

Alen and Mingze nodded in agreement.

"Yeah," Alen chimed. "I think that's the reason why I wasn't able to play during the tryout game. You made me shit my pants."

Kai shook his head in amusement. It was definitely because of the expired milk that he had drank.

"Well, are you still scared of me?" Kai asked.

Alen stroked his chin before shaking his head.

"Not anymore," Alen responded. "At first, your figure itself was just intimidating. Then, I heard rumors from our classmates that you were a troublemaker when you were in Junior Secondary School."

Kai raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What did they say?"

"That you never came to school, sucked at studying, smoked like a chimney, and had girls left and right."

Kai placed his hand over his chest. He had done all of those at the ripe age of 16? They all seemed pretty exaggerated!

"However," Alen quickly added, "after hanging out with you, I realized that you're just like us. Sometimes, I feel like you're even more of a loser."

Mingze chuckled. "But you were really cool a while ago."

"Yeah," Sunny chuckled. "Especially when you let the ball bounce on Yiming's head. Nobody dares go against those star players, but Kai did it on his very first game!"

"Don't remind me," Kai sighed. "I think that guy hates my existence now. He was glaring at me even from afar."

"That's honestly an honor," Dylan said. "That means that Yiming knows of your existence already."

Kai chuckled. "Well, that's one way to look at it."

"By the way," Sunny started off. "What did Yuze tell you?"

Kai sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

"He criticized me for the mistakes I made in the game."

Dylan pursed his lips and patted his back. "That's alright. Yuze's just very passionate about basketball. He probably said all of those so you could improve even more."

"Honestly, you're improving really fast," Alen said. "You were even better than last week."

"Kai has been working hard with training. He stays in the gymnasium late at night after the first-string team is done with their training," Mingze chimed.

"You've also been playing for only a month," Tony remarked. "Don't take Yuze's words to heart."

"Don't worry. I'm not offended," Kai said, a small smile playing on his lips.

Dylan narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Why do I feel like Yuze told you something else?"

Kai couldn't hide his smile anymore as he prepared to share the news with his teammates.

"I have some good news," he started off.

They waited in anticipation.

"I got promoted to the first-string team," Kai finally said.

At first, the second-string members couldn't believe it. In Dylan's three years on the team, he had never seen someone get promoted to the first-string team, only after a month into the school year! Some of his peers were only able to get promoted after a whole year of playing!

"Oh goodness. Congratulations!" Dylan exclaimed, breaking the silence.

At first, he felt a twinge of bitterness in his heart. However, when he realized how passionate and hardworking Kai was, he thought that he deserved it.

"That's huge!" Tony chimed.

Sunny fake-sobbed as he leaned against Tony's shoulder.

"He's growing up too fast. It felt like only yesterday when he couldn't even shoot a single shot," he cried.

Kai chuckled at their reactions. It felt nice seeing them being so supportive of him. There wasn't an ounce of envy in their gazes, which made Kai think how lucky he was to be in this team first.

"Let's throw a party for Kai! My treat," Dylan said, causing the boys to cheer.

"Wait," Kai said, breaking the celebration for a moment. "We're not going to train anymore?"

"Train this. Train that! Let loose, man. Let's have some barbecue first, and then we'll talk about it, shall we?" Sunny said, leading him to walk to their favorite barbecue place.

As they walked, they continued conversing.

"I have a good feeling about tomorrow. I think we can actually win the league, especially with Kai's improvement!"

Kai halted when he realized he missed out on telling them an important part.

"What?" Sunny asked when he felt Kai stop.

"I just remembered," Kai started off, scratching the back of his head. "Yuze asked me for a favor in exchange for getting promoted to the first-string team."

"Oh, what kind of favor?" Dylan asked.

"Well, apparently, Shang's dad needs to go to their farm to transport some new harvest to the other city. So, he'll be all alone in the hospital."

"Poor guy," Dylan said. "I wonder how he's doing. I wish it wouldn't be anything serious."

"Yeah," Kai said. "None of the members of the basketball team are available, so he asked me to accompany Shang instead."

"That's great," Alen said. "I know I wouldn't be able to handle being all by myself in the hospital. I always need my mommy with me!"

"However, that also means one thing," Kai said.

The others listened intently.

"I wouldn't be able to play with you guys for the finals of the league."